high quality scanning

[Carl P]

I am planning to scan my archive, thousands of mostly b/w negatives 6 x 6 cm, 6 x 7 cm and 24x36 mm. So I look for high quality, high volume (50-100 scans a day) and with a software that can save dust repair/retouch. I know the question is a little "antique" but what could be recommended. Today I have an Imacon Precission, superb scanner with a lot of time to spend on dust-retouch. Any flatbed with a higher "flow" would be as good?? I fear drum scanning will be too complicated for my skills...
I guess that there were people before me who had the same ambitions: scanning the entire archive without spending years with Phootoshop
(ICE-tecnologi doesnt work properly with b/w, right...??)
Budget approx 7000 Euro or 10000 $ or a bit more

Thanks
Carl P

[Ivan J. Eberle]

First question is, what exactly do you intend to do with your archives? 50-100 scans a day is probably overly ambitious if these are to be master scans from which to print.

[Eirik Berger]

The newspaper I worked in (until recently) wanted to scan the entire archive of negatives from the early 1970s up to end of the 1990s, and they ended up with a slightly used Imacon Flextight 949. They could not find a better option since there were different negative formats and even some paper copies. They use a airbrush-setup for dust removal prior to scan. It is quite fast, they scan fairly linear and they accept some dust in the scans.

In scanning my own negatives I did get rid of the dust problem once I started to wet mount. The problem with this workflow is that it slows you down, so it is a method for those high quality scans of your keepers.

I have a Scanview Scanmate F8+ and have tried both scanning negatives dry in the glass sandwich and the DustFree™ templates, but dust was a major problem until I started using scanning fluids like Kami. The problem was 99% eliminated.

[Carl P]

The scans are for publishing, high quality, 50-70 MB, dust-free (or almost). Most in 6/6 or 24/36.
There must be work like this going on around the world: transfer an old film archive to a digital archive. And thats why speed also is a factor: 50-100 a day (approx. 8 hours).
I guess a lot of this kind of work took place some years. And there still are photographers pondering on it...
thanks for response

Carl

[Peter De Smidt]

You might check into the Kodak/Creo Scanner IQSmart2.

[Jack Dahlgren]

The scans are for publishing, high quality, 50-70 MB, dust-free (or almost). Most in 6/6 or 24/36.
There must be work like this going on around the world: transfer an old film archive to a digital archive. And thats why speed also is a factor: 50-100 a day (approx. 8 hours).
I guess a lot of this kind of work took place some years. And there still are photographers pondering on it...
thanks for response

Carl

Scancafe will scan your archive. They send all your negatives and slides to India and have them scanned by people working for less money. I think there are other services like this. Like it or not, high quality still requires some human judgement about whether the scan is right.

The numbers I saw quoted mentioned about 4 minutes per scan. So their production line seems like it would crank out 120 slides per person in a day.

They also do a first pass and post the results so you can weed out the slides which do not need a scan.

I don't see how you can match this unless you have nothing else to do for several weeks. People I know who have tried scanning their archives have nothing but terrible words for the effort (tedious, arduous, intensely boring, etc. etc. etc).

[bob carnie]

Carl
we bought a front end of a fuji frontier system , for exactly this purpose. Fuji Scanner 2500. It gives 40 mb scans at it top end, good for up to 16x20 prints.
We use this for proofing out film and initial workprints of film. For this purpose it is great.
The dust free part of the equation is the difficult part as we are not concerned with final perfect files.
I am not sure if ICE can be incorporated into the workflow which may or may not help.
50 - 100 scans a day would be a breeze.
Most wedding photographers who still shoot film , are using this workflow for their wedding packages when sending out to labs.
A used system can be purchased for between 2-5k.
Bob



The scans are for publishing, high quality, 50-70 MB, dust-free (or almost). Most in 6/6 or 24/36.
There must be work like this going on around the world: transfer an old film archive to a digital archive. And thats why speed also is a factor: 50-100 a day (approx. 8 hours).
I guess a lot of this kind of work took place some years. And there still are photographers pondering on it...
thanks for response

Carl

[rguinter]

...People I know who have tried scanning their archives have nothing but terrible words for the effort (tedious, arduous, intensely boring, etc. etc. etc).

Jack has it right here, i.e., tedious, arduous, boring, etc. As a hobbyist photographer I had (round numbers) 500 rolls of 120 film, 50 rolls of 35 mm, and 500 4x5- and 8x10-inch sheets worth scanning... both transparencies and negatives but mostly positive images.

Using an Epson 4990 it has taken me about 2-years of spare time to accomplish. Hundreds of hours spent (at least some) most every day.

And these are not the highest quality scans. But all are sufficient for my needs and my local print shop does a nice job printing them for me if I want something for the wall.

The moral of the story here is simply: as Jack says, be prepared for a tedious, arduous, and boring task.

One of my early scans attached. Bob G.

[sanking]

I am planning to scan my archive, thousands of mostly b/w negatives 6 x 6 cm, 6 x 7 cm and 24x36 mm. So I look for high quality, high volume (50-100 scans a day) and with a software that can save dust repair/retouch. I know the question is a little "antique" but what could be recommended. Today I have an Imacon Precission, superb scanner with a lot of time to spend on dust-retouch. Any flatbed with a higher "flow" would be as good?? I fear drum scanning will be too complicated for my skills...
I guess that there were people before me who had the same ambitions: scanning the entire archive without spending years with Phootoshop
(ICE-tecnologi doesnt work properly with b/w, right...??)
Budget approx 7000 Euro or 10000 $ or a bit more

Thanks
Carl P

I suspect that the most efficient way to make a lot of high quality scans would be with one of the professional flatbeds like the Fuji or Eversmart and batch scanning. The beds on these flatbeds are 12X17" and up and allow scanning at up to 5080 spi, which should be good enough for MF and 35mm. With the use of the right masks you could scan up to twenty or thirty negatives with one set-up. Your budget of 7000 -10,000 Euros would just permit purchase of a used Eversmart Supreme, or a used Fuji Cezanne with a few thousand euros left to spare. Those are US prices, in Europe it may be different.

Regardless, scanning thousands of negatives will be a huge job. In my case I have decided that making high resolution files of my entire archive of negatives would be a waste of time so I have chosen to make low resolution files and save these in contact sheets that I can search easily should I choose to make at some point in the future a high resolution scan. One of the neat things about having a film archive is that unless it is physically destroyed you can delay scanning for many years, less so with color materials of course.

I think using the ScanCafe service would make a lot of sense as it would be the least expensive way to get fairly high resolution scans. Normal service is 29 cents a scan for 35mm at 3000 ppi, with a pro option of 4000 ppi and .tiff file for slightly more.

Sandy King

[Carl P]

Thanks for the detailed response.
One thing, Sandy: scanners like Fuji or Eversmart, how is it with dust and scratches....? Is there a software solution (b/w)..? It appears to be the biggest problem in the scanning process...
Carl

[Daniel Stone]

clean your film with Kami film cleaner or Pec-12 before scanning. Use both sparingly(according to directions on packaging), and they both evaporate and are deemed archival.

keeping your movement down in the room where your scanner is located also helps to keep dust down, and occasionally(once a week), do a wiping down of exterior surfaces of the scanner and surrounding area with a damp(not wet) cloth.

blocking A/C or heating vents also helps to keep dust from becoming airborne.

simple, occasional tips that have helped me to achieve relatively dust-free scans for the last 2 years or so. along with keeping my film in low-static side-lock(instead of printfile) style film sleeves available from museum archival supply companies.

-Dan

[sanking]

Thanks for the detailed response.
One thing, Sandy: scanners like Fuji or Eversmart, how is it with dust and scratches....? Is there a software solution (b/w)..? It appears to be the biggest problem in the scanning process...
Carl

The best way to deal with scratches and dust with large professional flatbeds scanners IMO is with fluid mounting. So far as I know there is no software solution equivalent to ICE for Eversmart scanners (don't know about Fujis), but even if there was a solution it might be appropriate where one plans to scan hundreds of negatives because it would slow down the scan. One the whole I find it much quicker to just scan the negative without trying to correct for dust and scratches and clean up the file later in PS.

Sandy King

[Daniel Stone]

carl,

but your last question: the eversmart & fuji scanners are just like any other scanners out there, just a MUCH higher build quality, and the materials used in their construction are better. The software for both is designed for a high-output workflow(labs) who need clean(this is more about storage/handling of film) files, very fast.

they're pricy, but if you have clean film, the fuji and creo(now kodak) scanners are fine beasts worthy of outstanding scans, and both offer wet-mounting capabilities(which helps with reducing dust and scratches), which helps if you're looking for the best raw scan quality straight out of the box.

-Dan